A couple weeks ago we linked to a post on popular Clarendon bar Galaxy Hut's MySpace blog announcing that owner Lary Hoffman had decided to stop accepting credit cards. The announcement sparked a number of agitated and sarcastic comments accusing Hoffman of passing on unnecessary extra costs, like ATM fees, to his customers. Thanks to the negative reaction, over the weekend Hoffman emailed us and posted a comment on the same thread saying he'd changed......

WTOP reports that fans will be able to bring their own food to Nationals Park. "We're allowing folks to bring in food," Nats spokesperson Chartese Burnett told the news radio station. "I don't know who's going to want to bring in food with all the great offerings at Nationals Park." The story also suggests bringing food to RFK required a certain amount of subterfuge, but that wasn't our experience -- I certainly walked in to......

As far as I know, I am the only DCist Food and Drink staffer who does not have Restaurant Week reservations. It wasn't because I forgot or because I signed up too late to score a reservation to my preferred destinations. Unlike Adam, I am not a big fan of Restaurant Week, and it was a conscious decision to skip out on what might be considered prime time dining for a cheapskate like me. First......

The kitchen's closing, and it's last call. In less than one week, I leave my native Washington, D.C. for the San Francisco Bay Area. For someone who loves food and drink, the move means fabulous produce (some, ideally, from the fruit trees in my future backyard), proximity to wine country, wonderful restaurants, and burritos, burritos, burritos! But it also means leaving family, friends, and food memories here in the District. So before I skedaddle, I'm......

O.K. Washington shutterbugs, we need to talk. You folks take incredible pictures. Some of them require an hour's set up, some of them are composed with great care, others are snapped to catch a rare moment. They are unique, expressive, and very special to everyone here at DCist. What they aren't, by and large, is of food. Food and drinks might not be as sexy as a macro shot of a beautiful flower, or as......

By DCist Food and Drink contributor Jamie R. Liu When I asked my friend to come along with me to Daruma in Bethesda, his response was something to the effect of “Bethesda is a culinary wasteland filled with mediocre chain restaurants.” But hidden away from frustrating pedestrian traffic and the main dining areas of Bethesda sits Daruma -- a hole-in-the-wall Japanese market that sports a decent food counter with a small seating area in the......

By DCist contributor Analiese Bendorf The Big Apple's Harvest Export Attention, all ye who still doubt whether one may dine seriously in DC (and we hope there aren't many of you left), you may soon be tempted to cancel that weekend jaunt to Manhattan. Washingtonian's Todd Kliman reports in this week's online chat that high-profile chef Eric Ripert, of N.Y.C.'s famed Le Bernardin, plans to bring his four-star culinary talent to D.C., where he will......

Although the DCist Food and Drink team would prefer to associate the word "turnover" exclusively with "apple," we also recognize that staff "turnover" is an inevitable fact of the blogging world. Two writers recently left us for print publications, and three others retired from service. In short, we've run low on qualified Food and Drink writers. When we need to restock, it's not as simple as heading to the local Whole Foods for wild-caught salmon......

Ain't Named Passion For Nothing Once again, the men of Passion Food's restaurants (TenPenh, Ceiba, D.C. Coast, and Acadiana) get out of their kitchen kits for a nude romp through 2007. Mr. Kliman over at the Washingtonian lets us in on what's underneath the aprons of some of Passion Food's cookmen, like Acadiana sous chef Anthony Piscioneri and TenPenh chef de cuisine Cliff Wharton. Though most aren't totally naked (though I hear Mr. October, Ceiba's......

First of all, this is another suburban restaurant review, so let’s just get that out of the way. Second, yes, we went to the steakhouse and got the chicken. Third, this is a time of upheaval for Ray's the Classics, so we can’t make any promises. Executive chef Michael Hartzer left after New Year's Eve to do his own thing (though we presume that, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with much beloved owner......

Restaurant Week is becoming the must have fashion accessory for the D.C. area this winter. Everyone’s got to have one. Case in point: Silver Spring, a long-suffering suburban “edge city” that has been on the upswing for the last few years is officially entering the fray to show off its shiny new dining scene February 5-11. THIS JUST IN: The price for a 2-course lunch will be just $12, while a 3-course dinner will be......

Now Departing Union Station, Trans Fat I'd watch out on the red line over the next few days if I were you. Courtesy of today's Examiner, we learn that both B. Smith's and Capitol City Brewing Company are booting Trans fat out the door, and he is going to be pissed off. There's no telling what some Trans fat will do, all newly-jobless and lacking a hydrogen atom, he may cause some bedlam by wantonly......

By Amanda and Ben Page This week, we took the phrase “Eating In” very seriously. With those pesky credit card bills from the the holidays rolling in, we decided to forgo dining out for inspiration and turn instead to the cold hard cash in our wallets. We gave ourselves exactly $10* to purchase ingredients for a delectable meal for two. We wanted three components (protein, vegetable and starch) on our plates. And we still intended......

Finally. After years of delays, the Old Dominion Brewhouse in the new convention center will be opening this Saturday. The convention center folks announced the opening in a press release, and mentioned food but not beer, which worried us a little -- however, a quick call confirmed that they do indeed have a liquor license, avoiding similar trouble at nearby BeBar and Vegetate. We walked by the place the other day and it looked completely......

We here at DCist wonder why they schedule Restaurant Week immediately after the Thanksgiving-Hanukah- Christmas-Kwanzaa season of fat-assedness. It's like D.C.'s restaurant community is our collective grandma: "Washington! My God, you look so gaunt! What in the world are they feeding you? It's high time you started having three course dinners after three course lunches. I mean you're rail thin! Look, your pants are hanging off of you." No Grandma, the pants are saggy because......

Every now and then, D.C.’s government inserts itself into the lives of ordinary citizens just out for a little nip with their lunch. Exhibit A: Our blogger friends over at Washingtonian are reporting the surprise and inconvenience many patrons of "better" dining establishments like 2Amys, Crème, Bistro du Coin, and Asia Nora felt upon seeing temporary liquor license suspension tags in these restaurants' windows recently. We say it’s a good thing. Not good, as in......

Tom Chats It Up Fishbowl DC decided it was high time to figure out what was lurking underneath Postie Tom Sietsema's mysterious fisog. Though they were unable to get him to reveal his disguises, they did show us a side of Tom we may not have seen before. For instance, did you know that he likes the letter "T" best, buys his coffee from a San Francisco roaster (we're guessing either Blue Bottle or Peerless),......

If you're both crazy for those dense poundcakes at Starbucks and a bit of a health nut, today is a good day -- the behemoth coffee retailer has announced that starting today, its stand-alone shops in the District will ditch food made with trans fats. Of course, with smoking now marginalized to outdoor areas, health gurus and nanny-staters alike have set their sights on trans fats, known more commonly as partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. New......

Editor's Note: After a lengthy hiatus, DCist's Eating In feature makes its triumphant return. Now written by married Culinary Institute of America graduates Amanda and Ben Page, each Eating In post will feature simple yet impressive recipes that anyone can make at home. We'll focus recreating winning restaurant dishes and on putting together meals from local ingredients and interesting items that you can find around the area. You know, just as we explained when the......

Loosen that Belt, but Keep Your Surgery to Yourself As we enter the final stretch-of-the-pants holiday eating season, perhaps we all feel a little tight in the trousers, but apparently not as much as the chatters last week over on TomChat offering their inane advice on what a poor patron who has undergone gastric bypass surgery should tell a waiter who wonders why so much of a meal has been left on the plate. The......

By DCist contributor Amy Monroe Today’s column will be about Champagne and sparkling wine. It will resemble Ben Giliberti's wine column in yesterday's Washington Post in that “It’s All About the Bubbles.” It will not resemble that column in any other way. If you’re looking for a laundry list of recommendations offset by non-specific tasting notes containing uselessly vague words such as “fresh” and “lively," stop reading now and take a look at the Post's......

'Tis two days before Christmas, when all through D.C., not a creature is stirring, except maybe Marion Barry. And who knows what he's stirring anyway? Whatever it is, it's probably not Splenda or non-dairy creamer. By the way, did you know that Marion Barry's middle name is Shepilov? I read that Marion's father Julian named his son after Dmitri Shepilov, the Soviet foreign minister under Khrushchev. But unless Julian Barry knew Shepilov personally, that can't......

With its upper floors now dedicated to live entertainment – in the former Erico Café – we thought we might be able to dine downstairs at Café Nema in peace, away from the bustle. We were wrong. Before the expansion, you got food and great jazz at Nema, but you also had to fight for tables, play musical chairs to get your party seated together and step over an amp to get to the restroom.......

By DCist contributor Amy Monroe As any D.C. dweller knows, it’s not so easy to buy a sixer, a 750, or a fifth on Sunday within city limits. The District’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Association restricts holders of Class A Licenses -- a.k.a. any store that sells wine, beer, and liquor for off-premises consumption -- to sales between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 p.m., Monday through Saturday. So what of those years, such as......

Following a post not too long ago about pairing leftover Halloween candy with wine, a commenter posed an important question: Where can you find Maynards Wine Gums? These curious flavored gelatins are a mainstay in the canon of British candy. They rank high alongside Cadbury Crunchie (Butterfinger’s much more elegant British cousin), Cadbury Flake (a chocolate stick comprised of thin and delicate concentric layers of chocolate), and Nestle’s porous Aero bars (available in mint, caramel,......

By DCist contributor Amy Monroe How do you know what’s naughty or nice -- in wine, that is? After much swirling and sipping, DCist offers up the following options for all the wine enthusiasts on your holiday gift list. Each selection is truly one of our taste-tested favorites. And if after trying anything listed below you disagree, don’t write. Just bring us the remainder of the unfinished bottle and we’ll happily toast you before we......

Red Sage Gets Along Little Doggies One of the restaurants who helped usher in the redevelopment of D.C.'s downtown, Red Sage, will close its doors next Thursday. Tom tells us that, despite serving 20,000 people a month (that's over 160 four tops a night), high rents in the area are driving the proprietor away. How bad is it when you're outgentrifying the gentrifiers? Though it's not the best restaurant in town, Red Sage has always......

If you aren’t in the mood to cross the Potomac for Thai (us), or if you have not yet jumped on the Bangkok 54 bandwagon (us again), then consider The Old Siam a low-key alternative. Since opening early last year in the old Mickey’s Patio location, it’s remained very much a neighborhood haunt. It’s a little out of the way for us, too, but when we’re heading toward Barracks Row, we stop in for......

What’s a holiday celebration without a cheery, slightly cheesy themed cocktail? Not very jolly, we say. Even if you don’t normally go in for a frou-frou drink, who can resist a glass of something icy and decorated with a mini candy cane or gold sparkles at this time of year? Not us. Here are three spots for festive holiday drinks guaranteed to lift your spirits: Morton’s The Steakhouse is capitalizing on the martini madness among......

We are fully aware that pizza is a very contentious issue here in D.C., what with all the wood-fired homegrown options, upscale regional inspirations, and the occasional pie that's been specially designated Napoletana. We’ve certainly had more than our share of the stuff from celebrated area ovens such as 2 Amys, Pizzeria Paradiso, and the like, but lately we've found ourselves craving a simple pizza-by-the-slice unencumbered by framed certificates or toppings exotica. We recently found......